In general, IPA symbols on a page should be enclosed in the {{IPA}} template, which formats the text in an IPA-producing font. If a substantial portion of a page uses IPA, it is customary to post notice of that fact with {{IPA notice}}, though each token still requires the {{IPA}} template for proper formatting.

If there are not enough occurrences to warrant a notice, then consider a template that links to an IPA key for the first instance of the IPA on a page or section.

For English words, in a broad, non-regional transcription, as when giving the pronunciation of a key word in an article, use templates linking to Help:IPA/English, a chart of the subset of the IPA that is relevant to English:

For words that are not assimilated into English, regional pronunciations of English words, and non-standard English dialects, use templates linking to the more general Help:IPA chart, containing all major IPA symbols:

For specific languages, there may be dedicated IPA keys for standardized transcription. There are several options for their display. The first cell includes the ISO code of the language; the second is the transcription; the third keys an introductory phrase; and the fourth is space for a sound file. Using the French word eau[o] as an example, we have the default format:

Templates have been created for languages which do not yet have dedicated key pages. Transcriptions which use these templates will link to Help:IPA for the time being; when a language-specific key is created the templates will be linked accordingly. For example, you can use {{IPA-jv|word}} for Javanese, but for the moment it will link to Help:IPA, producing Javanese pronunciation: [word].

The template {{x2i}} takes X-SAMPA symbols (ASCII equivalents of IPA symbols) and converts them to IPA.

Other language-specific templates allow you to enter ordinary letters (or conventional ASCII equivalents) in place of IPA characters, and they will be automatically converted to the phonetic symbols that are used to transcribe the language. The templates that are currently available are shown below, with examples: